I have been collaborating recently with a very exciting project called telly. I'm not sure if you have heard of it, but you can read more about it here: https://github.com/tellytv/telly.

There are a large number of telly users who use iptv-epg, and we have recently run into some problems. We were hoping we could work together with you to solve them.

The bottom line is that there are some tags that would be very helpful if they were included in the xml output by iptv-epg. Specifically, episode-num and dd_progid in the format <episode-num system="dd_progid">EPXXXXXXXX.XXXX</episode-num>.

Here is an example of a very well formed <programme> that, in a perfect world, we would be able to get from iptv-epg.

Code:

<programme start="20180823100000 +0000" stop="20180823150000 +0000" channel="I217.60316.schedulesdirect.org">
<title lang="en">Tennis</title>
<title>Tennis</title>
<sub-title lang="en">U.S. Open Qualifying, Day 2</sub-title>
<desc lang="en">Coverage from the world of tennis.</desc>
<desc>Coverage from the world of tennis.</desc>
<category lang="en">Tennis</category>
<episode-num system="dd_progid">EP02695463.0344</episode-num>
</programme>

Right now, we are not getting the dd_progid from iptv-epg, but instead we are getting something like <episode-num system="xmltv_ns">.24.</episode-num>.

The problem is, without this tag, Plex is unable to determine whether the program is a movie or TV show, and as a result, most programs are being unintentionally tagged as movies in Plex.

There may be other missing tags as well, but this is in the hopes of opening up a dialog so we can improve both services together.

That dd_progid system is developed by Tribune Media (Gracenote) for their own system, thus it's not part of the standard XMLTV format.

You should ask the Plex developers to implement xmltv_ns or onscreen support, both are standard XMLTV formats and used by EVERYBODY except Plex.

The problem is which will prevent this from happening is, that that system references single shows by the first batch of numbers before the dot.

We are unable to reference shows, because we do not recognize shows, nor do we track shows nor do we store shows.
Without that reference number Plex probably wouldn't know what to do.
Those reference numbers are given by Tribune Media (Gracenote) for their own system, which we do not have access to.

Also the real episode numbers after the dot are calculated in a way that nobody understands.

So actually if Plex cares about their users, it's easier for them to implement a STANDARDIZED episode system into their software, than for us implementing a system that nobody uses and nobody knows how it works.

As far as I know, Plex has its own EPG data and they probably get it from Tribune Media (Gracenote), that's why they use that system.

Let them know that you want to use a different EPG and they should allow you to do that.